the festival of books approaches

The LA Times has announced the nominees for their annual book prizes. For fiction and first fiction:

Fiction

Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Riverhead Books)
Andrew O’Hagan, Be Near Me (Harcourt)
Stewart O'Nan, Last Night at the Lobster (Viking)
Per Petterson, Out Stealing Horses (Graywolf Press)
Marianne Wiggins, The Shadow Catcher (Simon & Schuster)

Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

Antonia Arslan {Translated by Geoffrey Brock} Skylark Farm (Alfred A. Knopf)
Rebecca Curtis, Twenty Grand: And Other Tales of Love and Money (Harper Perennial)
Pamela Erens, The Understory (Ironweed Press)
Ellen Litman, The Last Chicken in America: A Novel in Stories (W.W. Norton)
Dinaw Mengestu, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (Riverhead Books)